Final project

Final Portfolio Materials due by Tuesday 5/9

As you know, the final project asks you to produce an extend inquiry based research project. The following outlines the expectations for that project. Grades will be determined holistically based on the extent to which the following is enacted in the final project.

Research Project Requirements and Expectations:

Research Projects should reflect/enact the following:

Inquiry Based- As we’ve discussed, the research work should enact the process of “critical inquiry” or “academic inquiry.” At the most basic level, this means that your discussion should emerge from, and expand through the process of, posing questions and working to answer them in your writing. This can begin from asking simple questions such as “how,” “why,” and “so what.” But it also emerges from secondary understandings of inquiry, which suggest things like “seeking the truth” or “investigation.”

Critical Work- While the ability to summarize and paraphrase research is an important skill, restating the work of others is not in itself a critical act. Doing critical work means going beyond summary and working towards the development of new knowledge. This new knowledge can emerge from a variety of practices. We can develop new insights by thoughtful considering the work of others through analysis and critique. We can develop new ideas by synthesizing the work of other scholars. And we can contextualize and expand our understanding through applying a critical lens to help position the significance of the work of others within different spheres of influence.

Research- Research can provide new knowledge and insights about the topics we scrutinize, or bring new perspectives to our current understandings. The kind of research we do, and the ways that we use research, is shaped by the genre expectations. We recognize that research can be used in varying ways within our work depending on contextual needs. We recognize the intersections between the research that we do, the ways we use research in our own writing, and the ways that we establish ethos and credibility in our own writing. We work to use research in ethical ways by citing our sources, crediting the work to the appropriate authors, and using sources in ways that are consistent with the values and context of the original text (i.e. we don’t take quotes out of context to alter their intended meaning, etc.).

Rhetoric- Our writing should reflect an understanding of the demands and expectations of rhetoric. We show this by attending to the demands and expectations that are implied by the rhetorical situation, and an awareness of how we develop ethos, logos, and pathos in our writing, and where appropriate, a recognition of the kairos of the topic and discussions about it.

Genre- Writing will reflect the expectations of the genre of “academic writing” in some form. At the minimum, the writing will enact a tone appropriate to academic work, make use of research in ways consistent with the discussions we’ve had in our class, and work to enact some form of critical work reflective of the discussions and feedback that emerged from the course. This means producing relatively polished, error free prose in final drafts.

Minimum Requirements/Expectations:

-approximately 10 pages double spaced (or the equivalent), exclusive of works cited page and any imbedded images, graphs, etc. that were not okayed as part of an approved multimodal offset

-a minimum of 4 outside research sources (coursework such as Casti and Greene may certainly be used, but doesn’t count as research)

-research representing a minimum of 2 different genres used in ways appropriate to those genres

-all sources cited appropriately using an established documentation style (MLA, APA, Chicago Style, etc.); this includes in-text citations of all summaries, paraphrases and direct quotes, and a works cited page (works cited pages doesn’t count towards page length)

-submit your final work to a new “page” on your Expressions site indexed from your home page (instructions below), submit a link to your final work in the “comments” section of Blackboard. Also submit a copy of the PDF and any other relevant files to Blackboard

Instructions for submitting your work to Expressions:

1) Save your text document as a PDF (to maintain formatting)

2) Login to your “Expressions” account and proceed to your dashboard

3) Click on the “Plugins” tab in the left-hand tool bar

4) Click on the “Add New” tab in the “Plugins” submenu

5) From the search box in the top right, search for “PDF Embedder”

6) Click “Install Now” on the PDF Embedder plugin

7) After PDF Embedder has downloaded, click on the “Activate” button

8) Click the “Pages” tab in the left-hand tool bar

9) Under “Pages” click on “Add New”

10) Title the new page “Research Project” (or your working title, if you have one)

11) Click on the “Add Media” button

12) From the “Insert Media” page, select the “Upload File” tab (top left), and select the saved PDF of your work

13) Click “Insert into page” button (bottom right)

14) In the “Page Attributes” dialog box (bottom right) click on the drop-down menu labelled “Parent,” and select “Home”

15) Click on the “Publish Button”

To submit other media files from your computer (.mp3, .wav, .mov, etc.) follow instructions 8-15 above. If you wish to embed the files (rather than just linking to a downloadable file), you’ll need to find an appropriate plugin.

To embed media files that are hosted elsewhere on the web, use the following instructions:

1) Login to Expressions and proceed to your dashboard

2) Create a “New Page” as above or choose to “Edit” an existing page

3) Select the “Text” tab from the top right corner of the text box.

4) Copy the url that links to your selected media

5) Paste the url to your selected media into the text box

6) Click the “Publish” button on the right (or “Update” if editing and existing page)